Soft skills of a game designer: how to deliver a project and not turn gray

What the talk is about

Iryna Kurska explains why soft skills matter as much as professional ones for a game designer, who constantly works with every department, and whose documentation is also a form of communication. She suggests starting with self-analysis and personal goals, then building self-management: orderly file naming, a checklist before taking on a task, splitting big tasks into stages, and alternating focused work with short breaks. For ideas, she weighs cost, fun and benefit to the product. On the team side she covers observation, staying calm in a crisis, asking clarifying questions instead of arguing, constructive feedback, understanding colleagues' specialties, and humor. She describes internal experience-sharing sessions at her studio. The Q&A touches on giving feedback, junior hiring, and difficult colleagues. Useful for aspiring and working game designers.